A/N: Please don't murder me. There's a reason for all of this and everything will be answered, I promise. Brace yourselves.

(XII)

Dear Violet:

It's been a week since I sent you my letter. Almost two since you sent yours. I'm getting worried. Are you hitchhiking? I don't even know if this letter will reach you. Please tell me where you are. I'm tearing my hair out here.

Missing you,

Tate

(XIII)

Dear Violet:

A week and a half. I think you must be hitchhiking. Be careful of some creepy drifter. The last thing I want is for you to die (well not outside the house, anyway). Send me a postcard from wherever you are. I need to know that you're safe.

Still worried,

Tate

(XIV)

Dear Violet:

Three weeks have passed. I was going to write sooner but I figured I was becoming too clingy. I worry. You're not here yet. I don't have a letter from you. I know nothing. Hayden keeps telling me that your parents found out that we're exchanging letters and are intercepting them. Then she says I should forget you. I usually push her away and against the wall. If I'm lucky, she's knocked out for a while and I don't have to listen to her. Beau knows there's something wrong and he tries to distract me by asking me to play with him. How could I say no? He's my brother. Surprisingly, Moira is the only comfort I find in this house. She hates me, but she knows that my mood changes the mood of the house, so she tries to cheer me up. She assures me that you're alive and that you haven't forgotten me. I tell her that I couldn't forget you if I tried. She laughs. Where are you, Violet?

With worried, loving affection,

Tate

(XV)

Dear Violet,

It's been a month. One month since I sent my letter to you. A month and some days since you sent your letter to me. I wish I knew how to find you. Christmas is coming up soon. I wish I could kiss you under the mistletoe and I wish we could cuddle in dorky holiday sweaters. We could do it in Boston. We'd do it in front of a fire and watch the snowfall. We wouldn't have to answer to anyone. It'd just be you and me. That's never going to happen but I wish it did. Maybe we can imagine all of that when you get here. If you ever get here. I wrote this for you.

Lost is the sun

Hidden are the stars

Blue is greyed

Panic overwhelms me

Worry feeds me

[...]

Lost is my flower

Hidden is her fire

Purple is blackened

Fear overwhelms me

Need feeds me

[...]

Lost is my lover

Hidden is her face

Hazel is whitened

Depression overwhelms me

Despair feeds me

I'm driving myself even crazier than I was the first time. The light you lit in me is dying out. The voices are coming for me. Now it's more than fear and worry for you...now it's a need for your shining light. Keats wrote: "My love is selfish." Mine wants to be but isn't. Just tell me that you're alright and a few sparks will aid my flame.

Yours,

Tate

(Tate Journal Entry: One)

It's been a month and a half since I last heard from her. What the fuck is going on? I'm starting to think Hayden is right. Lately, I've been slitting her throat every time she talks, but some of the shit she says beforehand stays in my head. Maybe Dr. Harmon found all the letters I've sent her. Or maybe Vivien found the sweater and told Ben about it. Fuck. I hate this. Violet wouldn't have stopped writing to me if that had happened. She would have found a way. Unless she's dead. But she's not dead…she couldn't be. After everything she's written to me, Vi wouldn't have killed herself in Florida. Maybe a drifter did get her. I hope a drifter didn't get her. If I were able to leave this fucking house I would go find her. I'm sick of not knowing what's happening to her.

It's the first time I use this journal as an actual journal. Feels weird. I prefer to just write fantasies and take a crack at poem writing. I miss Violet. I need to write it down or I'm going to scream. I'm going to fuck someone up and I'm not going to care. She's not here. I'm losing myself. For whatever fucking reason, she kept me sane. Or as sane as I ever can be. Even her letters made me better. She wasn't here but I had something from her…something to tide me over. A sense of calm came over me because she was out there missing me, reading my letters and writing me back. That comfort is gone now. Something's happened. Maybe she's changed her mind and decided to forget me. Maybe she never really loved me. Or maybe that's the house taking advantage of my misery.

(Haiku #1)

Where could she be now?

In a vast wasteland of naught?

I hope she's happy.

(Tate Journal Entry: Two)

Today was different. It's been a while since I wrote in this and it's almost the two-month mark of when I last heard from her. I've been jerking off to my fantasies of her (and with her panties) more than ever. The more I do it, the more I lose myself in the light side of my head. I get a high off it. I can't get drugs so I'm going to pretend I'm fucking her. Hayden's caught me on more than one occasion and tries to climb on top of me. I push her off every time. I just want Violet. I want to kiss her and I want to fuck her into the wall or the floor or the kitchen sink. I don't care. I'm finally selfish. I want her to be all right but I need her. I need her like I once needed cocaine. I want her to look at me like I'm the sun. She used to look at me like that. I want it back. I want her to tell me about the little things in her mundane life. I want her to complain to me. I want to make love to her. I want to hear her voice. I want to light her cigarettes, listen to her music, smile at the sound of her singing under her breath, see her roll her eyes at her parents and call them on their bullshit. I want to watch her sleep and wrap my arms around her so that her slumber can be peaceful. I want her here so that I could do everything for her. I can do nothing for her.

(Haiku #2)

I am fucking lost

There's no hope without light

I wish it came back

(Tate Journal Entry: Three)

I taunted Patrick today. It's been a bit over two months now and a strange pain has started to take over. It's more an ache that seeps deep into my muscles and bones and doesn't let me think. I don't know why I have it. Even if I were alive, I wouldn't be old enough to have that kind of shit. I got the sporto to beat the crap out of me. More than once. And he shoved a fire poker up my ass too. I deserved it. And I wanted him to do it. I wanted Patrick to make my ache become sharp stabs. Pain on pain. There's still a hole in my chest. I want to fade into the walls.

(Haiku #3)

They beat me to numb

It's the way that I like it

Makes me forget loss

A Mad Dead Boy's Lost Sestina

I've loved nothing more than I've loved Violet.

She loved me back though knowing I'm a monster

There's something about her that every day I miss

And missing things somehow quells my wrath

Yet all the while I wish I could scream in pain

But it's pointless, because the truth is that the bad has become a need

[...]

The bad is a substitute for her that I truly need

Colors have faded and combined until they're all greys and a muted violet

The monotonous color scheme mimics my soulful, physical pain

What I was I let others become so that there is more than one monster

The monsters and the pain are all the creations of this house of wrath

And though I want my love back, I doubt these horrors she'd miss

[...]

I'm often contemplative and spend hours thinking of my quirky miss

And these thoughts tend to start a fire in my loins and a clawing need

But I can do little to relieve them and the desperation turns to wrath

I close my eyes and see all that makes her my unique Violet

I even see the want of her being dead, a lifeless corpse…my mind too is a monster

Where the hell could she be that she sees fit to cause me such pain?

[...]

Now, my thoughts are barely focused on anything that's not her, loss or pain

The loss, it stems from her face, voice, smile and kiss that I miss

I used to have a purpose and I used to be sated, but now unleashed is the dark monster

And this creature once needing light, now carnage for vengeance has as need

Tear down the skies, bird, trees, flowers and find a solitary violet

The rampage begins from the aching wound that created wrath

[...]

Open and gaping…wider and wider and deeper and deeper becomes the wrath

Rotted and infected…wider and wider and deeper and deeper has been the pain

Beautiful and tainted…ever and ever and lost and lost is that haunted Violet

Vast and endless…ever and ever and lost and lost is that which I miss

Sharp and lustful…continuous and continuous and aching and aching becomes the need

Angry and hurt…continuous and continuous and aching and aching has been the monster

[...]

I have my ups and downs; I am your vicious and loving bloody monster

For hours I love you, for days I mourn you and in minutes you are my wrath

Those minutes make me loathe you but the hours and days make you my need

You have clawed at my insides and the scratches, fresh and stinging, bring your pain

But the convolution of feelings is better than not thinking at all about you, miss

Know it now; you are my strobe light, flashing on and off and murdering me, Violet.

[...]

You are my monster and I love your created pain

You are the sadness, love, wrath and lust that I miss

You are my fleshy spiritual need; my tainted and lost Violet

(Tate Journal Entry: Four)

I've actually lost it. I don't know what I feel anymore. One second I love Violet and I miss her and I want her back. The next I am a rampaging angry and hurt animal. It's like I've been caged for most of my life and then I just charge at the first person I see. It's Moira, always, that calms me down. Comforts me with words about how Violet stupidly (according to her) loves me. That Violet would never forget me; that she's not dead. Moira's words bring me back. But sometimes the old maid just can't control what happens. I never thought that being left without my light would be like this. I don't even know how to cope properly. I want to be hurt but I don't want to be hurt. I ache and sometimes something stings inside me, but I want it. Masturbating has only brought me so far in fending off the voices. It only goes for so long before I'm plunged back to a depressing reality. Remembering Violet is actually worse. It's fine for a while but then I always remember that she isn't here, at which point my head tells me that she will never be here. I need her. I need her now because I can't help it. I'm as lost in my mind as she is to me physically.

(Tate Journal Entry: Five)

I realized today. Near three months. She's never going to write to me again. I'm never going to see her again. She's never coming back. I've lost her. These are my last moments of peaceful clarity. I've lost her and I've lost a part of myself.

(Haiku #4)

The darkness has me

She said that once to her dad

It has me once more